Blue Sky and the Devil by Trampled by Turtles

Blue Sky and the Devil, the 2005 second release from Duluth, Minnesota's Trampled by Turtles, is bluegrass played at a gallop by a band with one foot in indie folk. They cut it at Dirty Old Town Studios, and it's Dave Simonett's show as a writer: he penned everything except "Dog On A Leash" and "Higher Calling", which came from mandolin man Erik Berry.

The picking is fast and wiry, the songs lean toward the dark side of the title, and "Codeine" is the song from it that found its way onto the countdowns. It came after Songs from a Ghost Town and before Trouble, and it proved sturdy enough for the band to press it on vinyl through their own Banjodad Records in 2020.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.